


Unquiet Dreams

by rebeccaredgrave



Series: The Interim Cases [1]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Adultery, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, OCs because it's a casefic, Series 4, Suicide Attempt, casefic, if that triggers you idk, if you're comfortable with the show then you'll be all right, no shipping sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-03-25 08:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13830450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebeccaredgrave/pseuds/rebeccaredgrave
Summary: When the body of a middle-aged woman is found concealed underneath the bed in a Oxford hotel room, Lewis and Hathaway are drawn into the secret lives of the Stow-on-the-Wold inhabitants, and discover that village life is not always as idyllic and predicatable as it seems…Set between Dark Matter and Your Sudden Death Question (Series Four).





	1. 5 p.m., the 10th

Five p.m. was unusually late for Hathaway to be called in on a case. Ordinarily, a murder had been committed in the night and was discovered in the morning. Sometimes, a body was found only minutes after death had occurred. For a rotting corpse to be found in the afternoon… well, that was unusual.

That was how Dispatch had described the body on the phone. Rotting. A fairly old body, then. Maybe a week. He would have to see what Laura said.

The really interesting part was the location. The Oxford Spires hotel, apparently. One of the more upper-class hotels, for people who could afford better than a Travelodge. How a body could remain undetected for any length of time in a hotel was a mystery in itself. One which Hathaway hoped could be solved more easily than the actual murder.

The hotel was not too far away from where he lived, and since he knew how bad parking could be from that area he decided to walk. Maybe some fresh air could clear his head, anyway. During his leave, after the Temple case, he had barely been outside. Aside from being in court for a couple of days after Mrs Temple had recovered sufficiently to attend – and as she pleaded guilty straight away, it was over in a flash.

By the time he arrived, fifteen minutes later, he found Lewis already conversing with Laura. Hathaway accepted the forensic suit off one of the forensic officers and went to join them.

“Is it true then? About the rotting corpse?”

“’Rotting’ is going a bit far,” Laura replied. “It’s a few days old, at least. And it’s spent most of its time underneath a bed.”

“A bed?” Hathaway said, astonished. “How come no one found it sooner?”

“I’ll show you, if you would care to follow me,” Laura said with a smile. She inclined her head towards the stairs. “Second floor.”

“Have you ever been here before?” Hathaway asked Lewis on the way up.

“It seemed unnecessary, what with living in Oxford,” Lewis replied.

It was extremely posh. The foyer – or entrance hall, as Hathaway imagined they called it – was large and spacious, and decorated with leafy wallpaper and beige rugs. Interestingly, poems written by Oxford alumni hung on the walls, such as Oscar Wilde and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as several portraits of other familiar literary faces. Near to the back of the room, in the bar area, several well-dressed people with expensive products in their hair were taking a break from sipping their champagne to gawk at the unfolding scene. The stairs were carpeted in the most luxurious tawny brown.

They reached the second floor, which had been blocked off with tape. They ducked under it one at a time. Laura led the way to one of the rooms, number 213, and pushed open the slightly ajar door.

The body had been laid out on the floor, arms and legs gently splayed out. The stench of it hit them like a wave.

“Christ,” Hathaway said, hand over his face. “How could anyone sleep in here?”

“The maid assumed a rat had died in the wall,” Lewis said. “She was using a lot of air freshener until the removal guys could get here.”

“Who found the body?”

“The two teenagers who were staying here,” Laura told him. “Their parents were staying in the adjacent room.” She pointed to a door set back in the wall. “They’re all downstairs.”

Hathaway gingerly stepped over the body and crouched down by its head. A woman, light blonde hair, probably late-fifties. Her face held hints of makeup, and her hair was neatly curled, although lanky and unwashed by now. She was dressed well, in a light pink top and black trousers, although both items were stained with dried blood.

“Stabbed?” he asked.

“Three times, by the look of things,” Laura said. “Additionally, the congealed blood in her hair indicates she hit her head as well.”

“Before or after the stabbing?” Lewis said.

“Impossible to tell yet.” Laura knelt down next to the woman and gently lifted her arm. “Nicotine stains on the fingertips; I’m sure the post mortem will confirm that she was a heavy smoker.”

“What are those marks on her arm?” Lewis said, pointing to what looked like a cluster of pinpricks on her upper arm.

“Injection scars, I’d say.”

“Drugs?” Hathaway asked.

“It’s possible. Could be heroin, or some kind of opiate. I’ll check for you.”

Lewis began rifling through the small plastic bags that held the contents of the woman’s pockets. “Any identification?”

“Not so far.”

“She was probably staying in this hotel,” Hathaway pointed out. “It can’t be particularly easy to smuggle a body in here.”

Lewis nodded. “Check the records of who stayed in this room.”

“By the way,” Laura said, “the witnesses who found the body are down the hall.”

 

******

 

To Hathaway’s astonishment and dismay, the two witnesses were children. Teenagers, really; aged sixteen and fourteen, according to their parents, who expressed annoyance about their children being questioned. The officers who had first attended told them it was completely necessary, which they were not overly happy with. The two children, however were in their element.

“Neither of us had ever seen a dead body before,” the younger one, Hanna, told Lewis and Hathaway. “So it’s quite exciting really.”

“Which one of you found the body?” Lewis asked with a small smile.

“I did,” the elder one, Becca, said. “The duvet fell off the bed, and as I was putting it back on I noticed what looked like blood on the sheet. It made me think of that urban legend – you know, the one where the couple find a dead body under the bed in the motel or whatever? So I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a dead body under my bed? And so I looked, just for fun, and, well…”

“Neither of you had noticed anything suspicious in the hotel?” Lewis said.

Both girls shook their heads.

“Do you know who had the room before you did?”

“No,” Becca said, “but I think they must have left early.”

“Why do you say that?” Hathaway asked.

“Well, usually when you check in, they say that your room will be ready by about three o’clock, right? Because the old occupants only left at eleven, and the cleaners have to tidy the room. But when we arrived, they told us our room was already ready, even though we got here at midday.”

 

******

 

The SOCOs scoured the crime scene for some time, but were unable to find any fingerprints except for those of the teenagers who had stayed there. Evidently, the maids were very good at their jobs. There was still no ID to be seen.

After some persuasion – “Resident confidentiality, and all that,” the receptionist said – Hathaway was able to get the name of the man who had stayed in that room before the girls. A Mr. T. Whiteman.

“Do you remember anything about him?” Hathaway asked.

“Not much,” the receptionist said. “I don’t really pay attention to the residents.”

“How old was he?”

“Sixty, there or thereabouts. He had dark grey hair, I think, and was going kind of bald.”

“Well-dressed?”

“Decently, I suppose.”

“He booked a twin room. Do you know who he was staying with?”

“Some woman. His wife, I presumed. She had blonde hair – dyed, most like.”

Hathaway jotted a few notes down in his notebook. “Am I correct in saying Mr. Whiteman checked out early?”

“Yeah, funnily enough. He booked for five days, from the third to the seventh. But he checked out late on the fifth. We don’t usually allow checkouts after midday, but the girl who was working that day is young, and... easily swayed.”

Hathaway nodded discreetly. “Did he give a reason for leaving early?”

“It should have been recorded, yeah,” the receptionist said, typing for a moment on the keyboard. “’Resident gave ‘personal reasons’ as reason for early checkout.’”

“Helpful,” Hathaway said. “Was his wife with him when he checked out?”

“I’ll ask for you,” the receptionist said. She went through the door behind the desk.  
Hathaway waited for a minute or two, drumming his fingers on the desk, until the girl returned.

“She says not,” the girl said. “And none of us remember her leaving at all.”

Hathaway nodded and was about to go into his ‘call this number if you remember anything’ spiel when the girl said:

“She did say, though, that he was kind of dishevelled, and looked like he’d been crying. That’s why she accepted the simple ‘personal reasons’. He looked like someone had just died.”

 

******

 

“Deceased is possibly a Mrs Whiteman,” Hathaway said as he entered the crime scene once more. The body had been moved, and Lewis was examining the spot of blood on the bedspread. “It was a Mr. T. Whiteman and his probable wife who stayed here before the kids.”

“Any sign of him?” Lewis asked absently.

“No, he checked out five days ago – without his wife, I might add. And, to quote the receptionist, ‘looking like someone had just died’.”

Lewis stood up slowly. “Let’s get back to the station, then. See if we can get a trace on this Mr. Whiteman.”

Hathaway nodded. “Where’s Dr. Hobson?”

“Gone back already, with the SOCO’s. See if they can match the woman’s DNA with any on our database.” He held up a small piece of torn white card. “One of them found this behind the desk.” He handed it to Hathaway, who examined it briefly. Its shape was half a rectangle, with a jagged edge that suggested it had snagged on something and ripped rather than been purposely torn in half. The word fragments **Wendy Wh** and **Accoun** were just discernible on the dusty surface.

“A business card?” Hathaway suggested.

“The ‘Wh’ could stand for Whiteman,” Lewis said, “and I think the bit underneath is the first part of ‘Accountant’.”

Hathaway turned it over in his hands. “It doesn’t look particularly old,” he said. “It could have belonged to the dead woman.”

“And if it did,” Lewis finished, “then I think we've just identified our corpse.”

 

******

 

“You’re not going to like this, sir.”

Back in the station, Hathaway had spent about half an hour trying to trace Mr. Whiteman. After the internet had come up with nothing of much use – there were surprisingly few T. Whitemans of age 55-65 in South England – he tried the police database. Something had come up almost straight away.

“Make my day,” Lewis said with a sigh.

“Well, I’ve found our Mr. Whiteman. Trevor Whiteman, aged sixty-one, currently resides in Stow-on-the-Wold with his wife Wendy Whiteman, aged fifty-nine.”

“’Wendy Wh’,” Lewis realised. “What’s the bit I’m not going to like?”

Hathaway held up the piece of freshly-printed paper he was reading off. “This is the list of current missing persons in the greater Oxfordshire area.”

“You’re joking,” Lewis said with a groan. “Missing since when?”

“’Reported missing by his sister when he did not return from his Oxford holiday,'” Hathaway read, putting particular emphasis on the word ‘Oxford’. “'Missing since the eighth. Also missing is his wife, Mrs. Wendy Whiteman.'”

“Absolutely fan-bloody-tastic,” Lewis said. “Missing for two days? Well, at least we’ve found the wife.”

“The question now, sir,” Hathaway said grimly, “is where’s the husband?”

“Found any next of kin?”

“Not for Mrs. Whiteman, no, but the name of Mr. Whiteman’s sister is Geraldine Thomas, who also lives in Stow-on-the-Wold.”

“Ever been there, Sergeant?”

“I’ve not yet had the pleasure,” Hathaway said. “I guess we’re off there, then?”

“You’re not a detective for nothing, are you?"

 


	2. 7.30 p.m., the 10th

The journey to Stow-on-the-Wold took a bit less than an hour on the A40 and A424. Hathaway wasn’t particularly impressed. It was pretty, sure, and picturesque – if the 20th century was your kind of era – but quite frankly it was just like all the other villages Hathaway had ever visited in his life.

Mrs Thomas lived just off the main street through the village, in a quaint little cottage decorated with snaking ivy and marigolds. It appeared at first glance to be the very picture of perfection, but as Hathaway looked closer, he noticed several roof slates missing, and a few patches of dead and dying flowers.

They parked in front of the cottage and started up the winding path towards the door. Hathaway felt a familiar heaviness settle in his chest; Mrs Thomas would doubtless be worried out of her mind, waiting for the police to come a-knocking, not knowing whether the news would be joyous or devastating. And it was him who would have to deliver that news.

Lewis pressed the doorbell.

“Sir –“

“I’ll do it,” Lewis said, a wan look on his face. Sometimes it was uncomfortably easy to remember that he had been doing this for thirty-odd years.

The door opened to show a prematurely-grey woman in her mid-forties. When she saw them, she gripped the doorknob tightly and leaned against the doorframe.

“Oh Jesus,” she said. “It’s about Trevor?”

“Yes, Mrs Thomas,” Lewis said. “Inspector Lewis, Sergeant Hathaway, Oxford CID. May we come in?”

Mrs Thomas bit her lip and opened the door wider to allow them in. Lewis went first and followed Mrs Thomas through to the living room.

“Had I better sit down?” Mrs Thomas said. “Are you going to tell me you’ve found his body?”

“We have found a body, miss, but it’s not your husband.”

Hathaway moved close to the window and stared at the marigolds. They were almost the same shade of yellow as the dry, starched grass.

“Then why –“

“It’s Mrs Whiteman’s body we found,” Lewis said.

“Good God,” Mrs Thomas said, putting a hand to her mouth. She sank down into a chair.

“She was missing too, we understand?”

Hathaway said, speaking for the first time. His mouth was dry.

“Yes,” Mrs Thomas said. “Her and my brother were on holiday in Oxford. They were due back three days ago. When they didn’t return, I tried to call my brother, but he did not reply. No one else could get hold of him, nor Wendy, and so I reported them both missing.”

“They weren’t the type of people to have... run off together?” Lewis said.

“Not remotely,” Mrs Thomas said. “I knew something was wrong.” She fished a tissue out of her pocket and briefly wiped her eyes.

“Did you have a good relationship with your sister-in-law?” Hathaway asked.

“Yes,” Mrs Thomas said, clutching the tissue to her chest. “With them living so close by, we often visited each other. I had Sunday lunch with them every other week.”

“And was their marriage... good?” Lewis said.

“Absolutely!” Mrs Thomas said. “Nothing wrong with – well – I mean –“

“What, Mrs. Thomas?” Hathaway said.

She hesitated. Then she said, “I got the feeling – just the feeling, mind – that Trevor was having an affair.”

Hathaway and Lewis exchanged a glance.

“With who?” Lewis said.

“I don’t know,” Mrs Thomas said. “But I think someone in the village. He hardly ever left it, you see.”

 

**

 

“Mrs Whiteman confronts her husband about the affair?” Hathaway suggested. They had left Mrs Thomas with the number for Oxford CID and the promise that they would get in touch as soon as any information about her brother came to light.

“So how come it’s Mrs Whiteman who ends up dead?”

“She attacks him, and he defends himself.”

Lewis laughed grimly. “You don’t stab someone three times in self-defence. And anyway, this was days ago. Where’s Mr Whiteman now?”

“Ran away? Maybe he couldn’t live with what he’d done. He might have even killed himself.”

“So we have another body to look forwards to,” Lewis said. “Lovely.” He stared at the address Mrs Thomas had given to him – that of the Scotts, who were very good friends of the Whitemans, apparently.

After asking a villager for directions, they found that the Scotts lived on the other side of the village. On the walk over, Hathaway’s phone started to ring.

“Hathaway.”

“Hi, sir, it’s Madge. We were looking through the records, see if we could find anything on the Whitemans.”

“Yes?”

“Wendy Whiteman was arrested for possession of heroin ten years ago. A year in prison and a £400 fine.”

“A year isn’t very long, is it?”

“She was in rehab while she was in there, and made a fast recovery. And as it was another woman who supplied the heroin, she was let out before her sentence was complete, which was to be two years.”

“What other woman?”

“There was a group of them, sir: Mandy Cohall was the ringleader, then also Matilda Lee, Christine Wilde, Viola Scott, and Deborah Jones.”

“Thanks,” Hathaway said, and hung up.

“What’ve they found?” Lewis said.

“Mrs Whiteman was arrested for possession of heroin ten years ago. Joined a recovery group and presumably stopped using.”

“So why did she have recent heroin injection scars on her arm?” Lewis said.

“Hopefully we can find that out soon,” Hathaway said. They found the correct house and rang the doorbell. “Because Viola Scott was also arrested for possession of heroin at the same time.”

It was Mr Scott who answered the door, his face immediately falling.

“Oh dear,” he said, “is it about Trevor and Wendy?”

“I’m afraid so,” Lewis said. “Inspector Lewis, Sergeant Hathaway, Oxford CID. May we come in?”

Mr Scott nodded. As they entered, he turned around and called, “Viola! It’s the police!”

“What?” a woman yelled from somewhere upstairs. “The police?”

“Yes, love. Oh, come in,” Mr Scott said, pressing himself against the wall. “Have you come up from Oxford?”

“Yeah,” Lewis said.

“Do you want a cup of tea or anything?” Mr Scott said.

“We’re not staying long,” Lewis said. “I gather you and your wife are close to the Whitemans?”

“’Are’,” Mr Scott said hopefully, “not ‘were’? They’re alive?”

“What makes you think they’d be dead?” Hathaway said.

“I don’t know,” Scott said. He looked at Hathaway warily. “I just –“

“Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you that we have found a body,” Lewis said. “That we believe to be Wendy Whiteman.”

“You what?” a woman said from the landing. She started to descend the stairs. “Wendy’s dead?”

“I’m sorry,” Lewis said.

“Oh my god,” the woman said, holding a hand to her throat. “You’re sure it’s her?”

“Pretty sure,” Lewis said. “We need someone to formally identify the body. Do you know who her next of kin is?”

“I don’t know if she has any,” Scott said. His wife made her way down the rest of the stairs and clutched hold of his arm. “She’s an only child, and her parents died about – twenty years ago, was it, love?”

Mrs Scott nodded.

“In that case, sir,” Lewis said, “I may have to ask you to come to Oxford with us so you can identify the body.”

“Oh no,” Mrs Scott said. “That’s dreadful.”

Hathaway groaned inwardly. Lewis always made him supervise the identification. At least Mr Scott wouldn’t break down in tears. Probably.

Mr Scott swallowed. “Oh, that’s… ghastly, but I suppose... if it must be done...”

“We need to be absolutely sure it’s Mrs Whiteman before we can investigate anything,” Lewis told him.

“Do you think it’s murder?” Mrs Scott said immediately.

Lewis looked at Hathaway. “She appears to have been stabbed,” Lewis said when Hathaway made no attempt to speak.

Mrs Scott started to cry and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Mr Scott just shook his head mutely.

“And we still don’t know where Mr Whiteman is,” Lewis said.

Mrs Scott stopped crying and wiped her cheeks. “I’m sorry, but we don’t know anything.”

Lewis nodded. “We have to ask a – ah – delicate question, Mrs Scott. Our records show that Mrs Whiteman was arrested ten years ago for possession of heroin.”

Mr Scott looked as if he was going to laugh, but changed his mind.

“Yes,” Mrs Scott said, “as was I and four other women. But we paid our fines and served our time. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Mrs Whiteman was found with injection scars on her arm,” Lewis said.

Mrs Scott sighed. “Oh god. She was clean for a while – five, six years. But I knew she had started again. I tried to convince her to stop, but she couldn’t. She was only using small amounts – couldn’t afford any more.”

“But she didn’t die of an overdose,” Mr Scott pointed out, “so what does it matter?”

“We don’t know if it does,” Lewis said. “We’re just following up as many leads as we can.”

Mrs Scott shook her head and folded her arms. “You don’t imagine that she was attacked by – by a – a drug dealer!” she gasped out. Then she started laughing.

Mr Scott clicked his tongue and put his arm around his wife. “Viola is prone to bouts of hysteria,” he said.

Same thing as ‘highly-strung’, Hathaway thought. We’re not in the twentieth century any more.

Mrs Scott stopped laughing eventually and wrapped her arms around her husband. “Are you taking Alan now?”

“I’m afraid so,” Lewis said. “Will you be all right on your own?”

Mrs Scott sniffed. “I suppose. Oh, don’t be long will you?”

An hour there and an hour back, Hathaway thought, likely with half an hour between for tea. But Lewis said he wouldn’t be, and Mrs Scott reluctantly unwound herself from her husband. Hathaway stepped back to allow Mr Scott to open the door. Scott let Lewis and Hathaway leave first, and gave his wife a light kiss on the cheek before leaving too and locking the door behind him.

They had reached the end of the garden path, and were almost at the car when a short, thin man with his blonde hair in disarray hurried towards them.

“Doctor Jerome?” Scott said. “Are you all right?”

“Geraldine told me,” the doctor said, breathing quickly. “Is it true? About Wendy?”

Scott gave Lewis and Hathaway a sideways glance. “Yeah, Peter. It’s true.”

“Christ,” the doctor said.

“And you are?” Hathaway said.

The man glanced at the two of them as if noticing them for the first time. “I – sorry, I’m Dr Jerome. I’m the GP in this village.”

“You were the GP of the Whitemans?”

“Yes,” Jerome said. “Are you the police? What are you doing with Alan?”

“We’re just taking him to Oxford to identify the body,” Lewis said quickly.

Jerome shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Not Wendy. It’s incredible that she could be...” he trailed off. “And after all that.”

“After all what?” Hathaway said.

Jerome swallowed and looked at Alan. “I don’t think I should disclose patient information.”

Hathaway was getting sick of people trying to use what they thought of as law to ‘protect’ the dead. It happened way too often. “It can hardly hurt her now,” he said, trying not to snap at the doctor.

Jerome wrung his hands. “I think I should get consent off Mr Whiteman –“

“He’s still missing,” Hathaway said, a touch tetchily. Lewis glanced at him but didn’t say anything.

It seemed for a moment that Jerome wasn’t going to tell them what he knew, but finally he dropped his hands with a sigh. “All right,” he said. “If I get sued for breach of contract I’ll lodge a complaint with the police.” He searched in his pocket and dug out a wad of paper. “Here’s the proof, if you need it. Prescriptions. Isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide, ethambutol. Wendy Whiteman was suffering from tuberculosis.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the medical information is wrong, I got it off the NHS website

**Author's Note:**

> I've not finished chapter 2 yet so who knows how long there'll be between updates.
> 
> Enjoy!


End file.
